Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ReMarkable Paper Tablet

blog.getremarkable.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 154 posts

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#121

Post by linuxkerneldev »

bravo22 wrote: post #119
linuxkerneldev wrote: post #7

For those feeling the impulse to empty their wallets, I urge caution. I just got done being burned by the kickstarter for the goodreader equivalent. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-inch-android-e-reade... I see no evidence that the team behind this "remarkable" product has ever completed anything of this scale. Some of the claims are very suspicious. https://liliputing.com/2016/11/remarkable-10-3-inch-writing…

I'll bite... their claim of 55ms is most likely for a tiny region to be updated. It is not for the whole screen. You'll notice in their video that full page updates are still slow. I've worked w/ e-ink technology and designed similar hardware before. Here is how they work: You scan across the matrix, setting the row/column multiplexer to the dots you want and flip the dots between black and white as needed. This flip…

> we rolled our own FPGA based driver and were able to get small region update down to about 20ms.

That is very impressive. 20ms latency from the time a pen hits the display to the point that a pixel is drawn on an EPD is twice as fast as an iPad Pro is able to do it on an LCD! Any links to your project?

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#122

Post by RandomOpinion »

linuxkerneldev wrote: post #7

For those feeling the impulse to empty their wallets, I urge caution. I just got done being burned by the kickstarter for the goodreader equivalent. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-inch-android-e-reade... I see no evidence that the team behind this "remarkable" product has ever completed anything of this scale. Some of the claims are very suspicious. https://liliputing.com/2016/11/remarkable-10-3-inch-writing…

>For those feeling the impulse to empty their wallets, I urge caution. I just got done being burned by the kickstarter for the goodreader equivalent.

What's the "burned" part about? I'm reviewing their updates and everything seems normal.

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#123

Post by bravo22 »

linuxkerneldev wrote: post #121
bravo22 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite... their claim of 55ms is most likely for a tiny region to be updated. It is not for the whole screen. You'll notice in their video that full page updates are still slow. I've worked w/ e-ink technology and designed similar hardware before. Here is how they work: You scan across the matrix, setting the row/column multiplexer to the dots you want and flip the dots between black and white as needed. This flip…

> we rolled our own FPGA based driver and were able to get small region update down to about 20ms. That is very impressive. 20ms latency from the time a pen hits the display to the point that a pixel is drawn on an EPD is twice as fast as an iPad Pro is able to do it on an LCD! Any links to your project?

This wasn't pen to screen update. The driver was only for screen update. It wasn't an open source project. It was work-for-hire.

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#124

Post by shostack »

This looks amazing. If you don't mind, I have a couple questions...

- I know you're not committing to certain things at this time, but can you confirm yet that a subscription fee will NOT be required for full usage? Ie. If I want to store locally or on Dropbox or Google Drive would something like that be possible? I hesitate to preorder without knowing how your full pricing model might be structured.

- Is the stylus unique to the device, or will any old stylus work? Also, will it need to be charged separately?

- Will there be the possibility of low frame rate animations? I could see that being super useful for diagrams.

- Can you share any insights into the current state of eInk technology with regards to color displays? Is it looking like something that might be commercially viable in the next 5 years? 10?

- As you acknowledge, this tech will likely be copied pretty quickly. How do you build a business moat around that?

Awesome stuff and excited to see how this turns out.

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#125

Post by Qwertystop »

moron4hire wrote: post #91

What is the bottleneck on eInk display refresh rate? Is it a fundamental limitation of the tech, or is the slow refresh rate of devices like the Kindle a power-saving feature?

E-paper (E-Ink is a brand name) works by magnetically moving small black or white particles (suspended in fluid) for each pixel whenever it needs to change. It's a bit like an etch-a-sketch, it's an analog system at the low level. At minimum, the movement takes time. Also, the current state of the pixel affects the charge that needs to be applied for a given target state - that means either taking more time to calculate, getting an afterimage, or doing that whole-screen black-white flicker to clear everything out. Probably all three due to precision limits.

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#126

Post by moron4hire »

Qwertystop wrote: post #125
moron4hire wrote: post #91

What is the bottleneck on eInk display refresh rate? Is it a fundamental limitation of the tech, or is the slow refresh rate of devices like the Kindle a power-saving feature?

E-paper (E-Ink is a brand name) works by magnetically moving small black or white particles (suspended in fluid) for each pixel whenever it needs to change. It's a bit like an etch-a-sketch, it's an analog system at the low level. At minimum, the movement takes time. Also, the current state of the pixel affects the charge that needs to be applied for a given target state - that means either taking more time to calcul…

I don't know a nice way to say this. Your reply has added nothing to my understanding.

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#127

Post by computerwizard »

singularity2001 wrote: post #95
IanDrake wrote: post #40

Looks really cool. Hope you guys nail it. I'm hoping to see more and more e-ink offerings. For myself, I would like a 50" curved e-ink monitor for work, black and white is fine. I know e-ink has terrible refresh rates, but I'm working with code and consoles 90% of the time. I could put web browsers and other stuff on another monitor.

+1000 An 16'' uncurved 20kg e-ink monitor with 100ms latency to work outside and I give you my car.

I want this too... It's almost 2017 how do we not have this yet???

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#128

Post by detaro »

freehunter wrote: post #106
IanDrake wrote: post #40

Looks really cool. Hope you guys nail it. I'm hoping to see more and more e-ink offerings. For myself, I would like a 50" curved e-ink monitor for work, black and white is fine. I know e-ink has terrible refresh rates, but I'm working with code and consoles 90% of the time. I could put web browsers and other stuff on another monitor.

I don't want another monitor, I want a terminal strapped to my face so I can sit wherever I want. Seriously, a small VR system that's just an SSH client would be a pretty massive improvement on my life.

video glasses connected to a smartphone could get you pretty close, sadly display resolution isn't great.

Maybe one could adapt cheap FPV glasses to take a smartphone instead, they don't "waste" pixels on stereo as VR setups do.

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#129

Post by sandsmark »

linuxkerneldev wrote: post #120
sandsmark wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your software is closed source, then I don't understand how anyone other than you effectively (or practically) would be able to solve or fix any security holes. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant that for pretty much all current e-paper devices you aren't able to get access to run your own code unless you find a security hole that you can exploit to gain access. And sorry about the strawman, it wasn't intended…

> I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant that for pretty much all current e-paper devices you aren't able to get access to run your own code unless you find a security hole that you can exploit to gain access. Ok. That helps clarify things. But on your website, you do not state that your device will permit flashing "your own code". Your website somewhat implies the opposite, it says: " DO YOU PROVIDE THE REMARKABLE WIT…

please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13114550 for an explanation of the bad wording of "best" developers.

I'm not trying to imply anything, but what I personally want and what we can do are two different things. I'm sorry if I've been sloppy in my comments here, the last days have been pretty hectic.

Re: ReMarkable Paper Tablet

#130

Post by cordite »

RandomOpinion wrote: post #122
linuxkerneldev wrote: post #7

For those feeling the impulse to empty their wallets, I urge caution. I just got done being burned by the kickstarter for the goodreader equivalent. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-inch-android-e-reade... I see no evidence that the team behind this "remarkable" product has ever completed anything of this scale. Some of the claims are very suspicious. https://liliputing.com/2016/11/remarkable-10-3-inch-writing…

> For those feeling the impulse to empty their wallets, I urge caution. I just got done being burned by the kickstarter for the goodreader equivalent. What's the "burned" part about? I'm reviewing their updates and everything seems normal.

Similar stuff is going on for other e-ink stuff, like Popslate. It's facing considerable delays despite having a physical hardware prototype.

Currently they are struggling with certified for iphone.

Post reply on HN